Housing is at the root of many of the rich world’s problems (2020)

> since the second world war, governments across the rich world have made three big mistakes. They have made it too difficult to build the accommodation that their populations require; they have created unwise economic incentives for households to funnel more money into the housing market; and they have failed to design a regulatory infrastructure to constrain housing bubbles.

The monotonic rise in the cost of housing is because of speculation. But this speculation is "legitimate" capitalism. The corpocracy certainly discourages the leftist notion of limiting capitalism.

> Housing is also a big reason why many people across the rich world feel that the economy does not work for them.

Housing is one of the reasons. Food, healthcare, and the environment are other reasons.

Agricultural land here in the Netherlands sells at 6 euro per m2. With a single stroke of a pen that ground can become 300 euro per m2, when the municipality decides you can build a house there.

Same process in Germany. There is more than enough space. Problem is the price of plots is kept artificially high by municipalities, because they rely on the easy money it provides to finance their projects.

I mean, how do you think the Western world become so wealthy? How did China raise tens of millions out of poverty.

Capitalism!

Yes, it is harder for renters, but it is designed to be harder. This is to prevent renters from having political power and making homeowner's houses more expensive. One more reason to fight, from my point of view.

I see at least two kind of schools on housing, one who talk about cheapness, typically from USA, Japan and few others. Another who talk about forever and ever duration, typically from south EU. Both have reasons and both to the extreme prove to be a disaster:

- in the JP/USA model a simple strong wind or a flood (from EU perspective) suffice to demolish houses, making big damages etc

- in the southern EU model houses are VERY old, they do not respond then to current needs and evolve them being not design to do so is a nightmare

Some countries choose the "division" model, like almost in the entire north-America with their residential-only suburbs, some mix at unbearable high density. Both models prove to be disastrous: the suburb model impose too much travel and being tied to some "district" nearby became a graveyard when the district change; too dense southern EU and Asian cities suffer the opposite issue: little travel is needed but things are so concentrated that there is no room to evolve.

Old Romans have a proverb: in medio stat virtus, "in the mean live the virtue", and I think that's well valid for housing... Too much dense => fail. Too little dense? Fail as well. Too diversified => fails, too much scaling issues. Too subdivided? => fails can't survive for long. Unfortunately evolving from a model to another, no matter if the change is good or bad, take MUCH, MUCH, MUCH time. Around homes we need infrastructures, like roads, aqueducts, power lines, TLCs, ... building a single home might be quick and easy BUT change the infra around normally is not. We still do not have the '30s dream of flying homes or semi-autonomous starships that can be moved easily everywhere... So far we do not even have flying cars (while they might be there technically)...

That's not much tied to richness: poorest countries have their housing issues as well, just in different terms. It's tied to the lack of Star Trek alike replicators and tech. Something that's not on the horizon nor for the rich nor for the poor. Is something we can and should tend to, but knowing it's far away.